Paul Bracewell examines Jallow v Ministry of Defence and the high threshold of the ‘good reason’ test
Costs budgets have been with us for over five years, but it is only in the last year and since the Court of Appeal decision in Harrison v University Hospitals Coventry & Warwickshire NHS Trust [2017] EWCA Civ 792 that we have had a regular flow of case law to deal with.
While Harrison has been of assistance in focusing minds on trying to agree incurred costs, there are two issues that often prevent settlement. The first is the application of proportionality, especially where the matter settled for a lower figure than the court had in mind when setting the budget. The second issue, post Harrison, is whether or not a difference in rates for budgeted costs and the bill for detailed assessment will give ‘good reason’ to increase or reduce budgeted costs.
Both these issues arose in the recent decision of Master Rowley sitting in the Senior Court Costs Office in Jallow v Ministry of
